A 7-Year-Old Who Lived Mostly on Potato Chips and Fries Died Weighing 255 Lbs., and His Parents Are Now Charged with Murder
Casper O’Brien died of dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart disease, with morbid obesity listed as a contributing condition by the Genesee County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was 7 and 4 feet 2 inches tall.
At his last doctor’s visit in February 2024, he weighed about 104 lbs. He gained roughly 150 lbs in the less than two years that followed, on a diet that consisted largely of potato chips and French fries, according to the autopsy report.
Jessica O’Brien, 41, and Damien O’Brien, 40, of Flint Township, Michigan, were arrested June 24 and charged with second-degree murder, torture and three counts of second-degree child abuse, according to online court records. If convicted of the murder and torture charges, they face life in prison.
A felony complaint obtained by PEOPLE alleges Casper was “immobile” at the time of his death and that his parents failed to feed him properly or take him for treatment. Damien O’Brien worked in IT for Delta Dental and had health coverage that Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton called “as good as it gets.” That February 2024 primary care visit referred Casper to a pediatric endocrinologist. He never went.
Officers who responded to the 911 call on November 4, 2025 found the boy in a makeshift bed he shared with his parents and 5-year-old sister, Illeana. Leyton told The New York Times the parents were hoarders, and police described the rental home as “absolutely disgusting,” filled with piles of trash, its one bathroom holding a broken toilet.
“This was a sad and horrific case involving the wanton and willful neglect by two parents for the care, welfare and medical needs of their son,” Leyton said in a statement.
Casper had nonverbal autism and did not attend school. His obituary remembered him as “a bright, loving young boy whose joyful spirit touched everyone around him.”
Illeana was found naked, dirty and morbidly obese when authorities arrived, prosecutors said. She is in temporary foster care and is doing well, according to Leyton.
The couple is being held at the Genesee County Jail on no bond and is due back in court July 2.
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